Given
by StarWarrior72
Summary: In which Leia brings home a boy entirely sooner than Vader ever would have guessed.


I always knew the day would come when Leia brought a boy home from school. It was a given. The day, however, came a little prematurely. I was under a ship, making some repairs to it when she entered. As was our custom, she knocked on the ship, sending a ringing through my skull. Covering my ears until they stopped ringing, I answered.

"Yes, Leia?"

"I made a new friend at school, Daddy."

"I'm glad to hear that, Sweetie."

"He hasn't got a daddy. So I said that you'd be his daddy."

My answer was a little bit too automatic to be stopped, "That's nice."

"I knew you wouldn't mind!"

It was the happiness in her voice that clued me in that I'd made a misstep. Instantly my brain kicked into gear, going over the conversation for any danger spots. As it finally hit on the part where she told me that I was now the father of not one, but two kindergarteners, I was out from under the ship faster than either of us had been expecting. Well, any of us, it turned out. Because Leia had taken the pro-active approach and brought the boy home with her.

"Leia, how did you get him out of the school?" I asked, more curious than annoyed.

"Oh, they helped. Luke's been going to their pre-school since they had to bottle-feed him! They want him to have a daddy too. So they called the orphanage an' everything."

I sighed.

In response, Leia gave a deep sigh of her own. "Come on, Daddy. He hasn't got a daddy. An' you're a good daddy. Why can't we keep him?"

I didn't really see any good reason to send Luke away again, except for the legal struggles, "First of all, I don't want to hear you say 'keep him' like that ever again. He's not a puppy, he's a person."

"Then how am I supposed to say it?"

"Leia, I wouldn't object if you never did this to me again."

"What about him? Why can't he stay?"

Because social norms, because adoption, because I was already busy trying to control an Empire and an out of control daughter, because so many reasons, but then he looked at me and spoke his first words of the conversation.

"I understand. Sorry, Leia. Thanks."

Then he turned to leave, his head hanging.

"Where do you think you're going?" I snapped at him.

He turned around, looking at me in confusion, "I'm going home."

"Where's home?"

"The orphanage. Where I've always lived."

I closed my eyes, resting my head in my hands. Today had been a fine day until Leia had decided to spring this on me. I really wanted to crawl back under the ship and work on it and sort out my thoughts.

"Daddy, you always say you like fixing stuff. What about Luke?"

"Leia!" I shouted, "He doesn't need to be fixed! He's just fine."

Leia, as usual was not even remotely frightened. In fact, as usual, it had done nothing but bolster her confidence that she was right, "That's not what I meant. I mean he needs a family!"

Luke was inching for the door. "Don't you go anywhere!" I yelled.

Unlike Leia, he was frightened, freezing in his tracks. I sighed, "Sorry. I don't mean to frighten you."

He took a deep breath and nodded, "Yeah. It's okay, I'll just get home. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be a problem."

"No, stay here. If I put this off, it'll only give Leia a chance to become more opinionated about it. That's the last thing I need."

Hesitantly, Luke walked back into the clearing in the hanger.

Leia seated herself in the most state-of-fact way possible. Nervously, Luke sat down next to her. Always the comforter, she took his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. "Everything's going to be okay, Luke. I won't let him say no."

That was the moment I knew I couldn't win. It wasn't that Leia only ever used that phrase in situations which she ended up winning, although she only did it when she was quite certain. I had beaten her after she'd used it. No, it was the sad thank-you-for-trying-but-sometimes-it's-really-bes t-to-give-up look Luke gave her.

There was nothing in the galaxy that could have said more plainly that he had given up any hope he'd ever had of having a loving family. He'd accepted that there would never be a family waiting for him to get home.

I didn't like that. It just wasn't right. Everyone in the galaxy had the right to their families. Maybe if Jedi had been allowed to be near their families, they would have been more tolerant, and I never would have made my mistakes. I closed my eyes again.

"Are you okay?" It was Luke who spoke.

I looked up. Unable to address him directly, I looked to Leia, "Daddy's thinking of Mommy again. Come here."

Whatever might be said of Leia's listen-and-obey abilities, she always did as I asked when I was thinking of Padmé. She didn't let me down. She came forward and let me hold her for a moment. Then she extracted herself from my arms and opened her mouth, apparently having come up with another argument.

"Luke doesn't have a mommy either. An' he doesn't have anyone to hug when he misses her."

As if on cue, Luke began to cry softly.

I debated with myself a moment before reaching for him. I was probably going to be forced into adopting him in the end. I might as well let myself hold him.

As I lifted him, he looked up at me with wide, watery eyes. As I gently pulled him close, he nestled himself against me, still keeping himself from crying.

"It's all right, Luke."

"I want my mommy!"

"Shh. I know you do."

Unlike Leia would have, Luke obeyed without question, silencing his sobs as he pressed closer against me.

"Did she die or is she-is she still out there somewhere?" _Did she abandon you?_

Luke was unable to hold back the wail that escaped him in that moment. "I don't know! I don't even know! They just found me on the doorstep! They said there was blood on my blankets!" He suddenly became calmer, looking at me, "You know in the movies? The mommy always leaves a note or a locket or something? With the kid's name? My mommy didn't! They had to analyze my reactions to different names until they found the right one!"

He gave another helpless wail and pressed himself against me again. Leia was watching the exchange with an expression on her face that could not have said any more clearly that she hadn't known what she was getting into.

"An' now they say I've got leukemia an' I probably won't live!"

I looked down into his face. I recognized now that it was terribly pallid. In fact, he looked as if he might already have been half dead. And what I had mistaken for tired bags under his eyes may, in fact, have been bruises.

"That's awful! What are they doing to try to save you?"

Luke lost his hold on his tears, pressing himself against me. As Leia tentatively approached, Luke grabbed her hand, pulling her into the hug as well. His shaking body clung to me more tightly than it did Leia, and she tried to drift away, but I pushed her close against him, knowing he would be hurt if he left his side.

Finally, he looked up at me, "Nothing! They're not doing anything at all! They're gonna let me die!"

I held him closer, "Why?"

At last, Leia burst into tears.

"I don't want him to die! Don't want that! He can't die!"

"Shh, Sweetie. You run off to bed, I'll take care of him."

She gave me a look of deepest trust and ran off to her room. I stayed on the floor, holding Luke gently.

"It's all going to be okay."

"No! It's not! I'm never going to have a family! I'm gonna die! I always thought someday I'd have kids an' then I could have a family, but that's not even gonna happen! I always thought I could give some other kid a life."

"Why aren't they treating you?"

"They don't have the money. No funding for me. There's a set of requirements you've gotta meet to get funding. And I didn't meet all of them 'cause they pulled a dying baby in off the streets without thinking about it!"

"The Empire's not funding your home?"

"No. Cause there's all this paperwork someone has to do, and no-one can do it for me now. My only hope was getting adopted. An' now I'm getting bruises everywhere, and sometimes blood leaks through my skin, and no-one's ever going to want me now."

"Come on, Luke. I'm taking you to the hospital. I can fund your treatment."

"Really?" He looked up at me with shy hope in his small face.

"Yes, certainly. And I'll be looking into why they're not funding you too."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, I can. Come on, I'm taking you right now."

I picked him up and carried him to a speeder in a slightly less obvious state of disarray and put him in the passenger seat. "Everything's going to be okay now."

Luke nodded trustingly.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was surprisingly easy to rush Luke through all the lines. Just a quick mention of who he was, and he was able to carry the boy right through.

When he reached the cancer branch of the hospital, he was forced to give the boy up for testing.

I was surprised when, shortly later, a nurse exited the room, "You said that you want this boy healed on your own paycheck because his orphanage won't pay the medical bills?"

"Yes."

"Oh, okay," the woman looked at her datapad in confusion, "It's just, Lord Vader, Luke is your son."

"My son?" I asked, astonished.

"Yes," she held out the datapad, "We ran tests on his blood, and he certainly does have leukemia. So we searched for a bone marrow donor, and you and this girl," she turned the pad back to herself, typing furiously, "Were the closest matches. The girl matches as a twin sister."

"That's my daughter. That's certainly my daughter, but, are you sure?"

"Very sure."

At that moment, Luke snuck out of the testing room and looked up at me, "Daddy? Does this mean I'm coming home with you?"

I knelt down, taking his little face in my hands, "Luke, I thought it was a given."


End file.
